“There are many taxpayers and residents in this state who use pickup trucks as their personal vehicles and they are unfairly being denied a tax credit that every car owner in the state gets to utilize. This legislation will correct this imbalanced policy so that all personal vehicles are treated the same in regards to the sales tax credit on trade-in vehicles,” said Representative Canario.

The legislation concerns the trade-in value of pickup trucks. When the purchaser of a personal automobile in Rhode Island trades in another vehicle, their sales tax is calculated on the price of the new car, minus the value of the trade. But if one of the vehicles is a pickup truck, the trade-in value is not subtracted, because the state tax laws consider all pickup trucks to be commercial vehicles, not personal ones. The bill allows buyers to get the credit just as they would for any other passenger automobile.